With several laws set to go into effect on January 1, 2015, what are the priorities and focus of the Legislature this year? Also, the LAPD is warning drivers of tow truck "bandits" towing cars from accident scenes and holding them for a hefty ransom. Then, thawing Cuban relations, Sony hacks or ebola outbreaks? What was the biggest news story of 2014?
New laws in 2015: What we'll see from the California Legislature
In 2014, the California Legislature passed and Governor Jerry Brown signed more than 900 bills into law. The drought forced the Legislature into action and bills were passed to regulate groundwater for the first time and override homeowners associations that fined members for changing their lawns to drought-tolerant landscaping. California also became the first state to ban single-use plastic bags and the first state to create a “yes means yes” standard for sex between college students.
While there are several laws set to go into effect on January 1, 2015, there is also the question of what the priorities and focus of the Legislature will be this year. How will the Legislature spend its surplus budget money? Will a better economic outlook mean fewer bills passed? What should California’s Legislature be focusing on in 2015?
Guest:
Dan Walters, political columnist, Sacramento Bee
Ben Adler, Capital Bureau Chief at Capital Public Radio in Sacramento
LA racks up parking tickets for street sweeping — but only in a few neighborhoods
There’s lots of ways to get parking tickets. You forgot to feed your meter or you parked in a red zone while running into the store. The LA Times crunched the numbers and the highest proportion of tickets paid — those pesky red and white envelopes that spell $73 vanishing from your wallet — were not to meters or other violations, but instead for parking in a restricted zone on street sweeping day.
Residents in dense neighborhoods like Hollywood and Koreatown are issued the most street sweeping violations by far, even as the city has cut back on the total amount of street cleaning. Meanwhile, neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley receive very little street sweeping, and very few tickets.
Officials have tried to make it easier, by relaxing rules on certain days that the street cleaning isn’t coming, by posting those routes to a city website. A CBS investigation earlier this year found that enforcement issued citations even on some of those routes. Mayor Eric Garcetti apologized and promised refunds.
Revenue from parking tickets goes to the city’s general fund, which keeps residents wary of which neighborhoods get cited, and how often. Not to mention the large-scale apartment buildings in densely-populated areas often lack off-street parking.
Do you have a complicated routine to avoid tickets on street sweeping days?
If you feel you have been given a parking citation incorrectly, you can call 866-561-9742.
Guests:
Ben Poston, LA Times writer and data editor
Richard Willson, professor of Urban Planning at Cal Poly Pomona
Bruce Gillman, Communications Director for the L.A. Department of Transportation
In an accident? Beware of tow truck scammers
Traffic and car accidents in LA County are as common as sunshine and palm trees with over 6,000 reported within the first three months of 2014. For people involved in a fender bender, holding up traffic, car damages and possible injuries are all enough to stress over. Falling victim to a tow truck scam is now another stressor to add to the list, according to the LAPD and the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
They’ve partnered to raise awareness of “bandit” tow truck operators who show up to the scene of an accident, before law enforcement, to tow cars and charge outrageous prices to the owners who want to retrieve it. Scammers use police scanners to find recent car accidents, claim to be affiliated with insurance providers and exhort drivers to sign paperwork unknowingly authorizing their financial demise. Owners have shelled out up to $4,000 to reclaim their cars.
Since California law now has stricter guidelines for tow truck operators impounding cars from private lots, more are preying on accident victims. Once they’ve towed a car from an accident scene, cars are taken to body shops, tacking on hefty charges for repairs and holding and towing fees.
What strategies are being put in place to prevent these scams from continuing?
The LAPD and NICB recommend the following in a press release:
- If you are in a non-injury accident, contact police and your insurance company or motor club to request an authorized tow truck.
- Your insurance company or road side service should provide the name of the tow truck company and expected arrival time. If a tow truck arrives unexpectedly, a call back to the road side service center should be considered to confirm the tow company is the correct company dispatched.
- Do not be pressured or intimidated into dealing with a tow truck driver that was not requested.
- Do not sign any towing release form that does not clearly spell out the charges involved and the exact location where you want the vehicle taken.
- Use your cell phone to take pictures of any tow truck operator and equipment that shows up on the scene.
- Take pictures of the damage to the vehicles. Some unscrupulous body shops will enhance the damage once they get the vehicle to inflate the repair charges.
- If you are injured in the accident, do not be forced into signing a release. Let the police handle the tow.
Guests:
Frank Scafidi, Director of public affairs, National Insurance Crime Bureau
Benjamin Jones, LAPD detective, oversees enforcement section of Police Commission Investigation Division
What was 2014’s news story of the year?
In 2014, President Obama announced sweeping legislation reform and the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, Sony backpedaled after a hack exposed some less-than-flattering emails from company executives and came under more scrutiny after they chose to pull their Christmas Day release of The Interview due to threats of violence at theaters that showed the film, Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections, and protests erupted across the country after grand juries did not indict the police officers involved in the deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York. And that is just in the last two months of the year.
2014 also saw the advent of legal pot use after four states and Washington D.C. voted to allow marijuana to be used recreationally, a deadly outbreak of Ebola in West Africa that led to a couple of cases in the U.S., the shocking deaths of celebrities like Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the still-unsolved disappearance of a massive commercial airliner carrying more than 200 people aboard.
What do you think was the biggest story of 2014? Be sure to vote in our poll below and add a story if you think we missed one!
Ranker - Lists About Everything
Guests:
Jim Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine and the author of ten books, most recently China Airborne (Vintage, 2013). He was also once the chief speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter.
Bob Thompson, professor of television, radio, and film in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University.
What 'Back to the Future' got right about 2015
Capitalizing on the success of the first "Back to the Future" movie, which was released in 1985, Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and most of the original cast returned to the silver screen just four years later for a sequel set in the far off year of 2015.
While some of the movie’s predictions about future technology are laughable to us future-dwellers, Adrienne LaFrance with The Atlantic contends that, “... examining how the real world advanced … is far more revealing.” Hover-boards, instant re-hydrators and flying cars? No. But what the movie was able to pinpoint is a few key technologies, variations of which are still in use today.
Today, AirTalk takes a look back at our favorite gadgets from "Back to the Future," and examines the technology that will shape 2015 and beyond.
Guests:
Adrienne LaFrance, reporter with The Atlantic
Jefferson Graham, technology columnist for USA Today, and host of the Talking Tech video podcast series
Jason Perlow, Senior Technology Editor at ZDNet, a tech news site; a technologist